Ukraine Update

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Georgia is a very important partner for us around the Black sea. It obviously knows itself what it is like to be on the wrong end of a Russian invasion, and it is very important that we help Georgia’s resilience to that. It is also important that we recognise what Russia, having consolidated, then tries to do in countries such as Georgia, which is divide, corrupt and continue to manipulate. That is why it is very important that Britain’s relationship with Georgia is a long and enduring relationship to help it with its own resilience.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Delivering the defensive equipment that has been so vital to Ukraine’s success in resisting the Russian invasion has been really instrumental, and I think the Government deserve all credit for their work in that respect. But could the Secretary of State state what the UK’s current overarching aims in this conflict are, and confirm that support for Ukraine will continue long term irrespective of who occupies No. 10?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful and thank the hon. Member for his comments. Our objective is to push, or help Ukraine push back Russia from both its actions since February, and if Ukraine takes the choice to continue to try to push Russia out of its illegally occupied territories, then of course the west and the international community will stand by it in doing that. I think, in its simplest form, Britain wants to help Ukraine be free to choose. What it chooses is slightly secondary to the fact that it has the freedom to choose in the first place as a sovereign state. That is what we are all trying to work for, and the only country that does not want to do that is Russia.